Canadian serial killer gets life sentence

Ottawa, Feb 9 (IANS) Canadian serial killer Bruce McArthur has been handed a life sentence for the murder of eight men and he cannot apply for parole for 25 years.

The 67-year-old has been given eight concurrent life sentences. He pleaded guilty last week to eight counts of first-degree murder for the brutal killings of eight men between 2010 and 2017. Some of them were his close friends, the BBC reported.

At a sentencing hearing on Friday, Ontario Superior Court Justice John McMahon noted the gruesome nature of McArthur's crimes but he cited the latter's guilty plea and his age as reasons for his sentencing decision. McArthur will not be eligible for parole before he is 91.

Most of the killed, as well as McArthur himself, had deep ties to Toronto's LGBTQ community. Most victims were immigrants and of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent. Some lived parts of their life in secret because of their sexual orientation.

Justice McMahon called the crimes "pure evil" and especially condemned McArthur's exploitation of his victims' vulnerabilities.

McArthur sexually assaulted and forcibly confined many of his victims before murdering them. He killed most of the men in his bedroom, where he bound and then strangled them with rope.

McArthur posed their bodies for photographs, with many of the pictures featuring the same fur coat. He kept those images in folders on his computer labelled for each of his victims, accessing some of those photos long after the killings.

McArthur dismembered all his victims and buried most of their remains in large planter pots at a home in midtown Toronto where he stored his landscaping equipment. One man's remains were found in a garbage bin buried in a nearby ravine.

When McArthur was arrested in January 2018, police found a man tied to his bed and a folder on his computer labelled with the man's name that contained photos of him.